Distillery to open at former Four String
Two central Ohio entrepreneurs plan to move a bar and distillery into the former home of the Four String taproom near Grandview Heights, which closed without notice nearly a year ago.
Joe Bidinger and Nikhil Sharoff are opening Echo Spirits at the 985 W. 6th Ave. location. They plan to begin distilling liquor as soon as they acquire all of their equipment, and hope to open the bar in the fall.
The two will distill rye whiskey, rum and genever (a Dutch spirit similar to gin) that they will distribute to bars throughout central Ohio. Their vision is producing liquors for classic cocktails such as the Tom Collins or the Manhattan.
“It’s the idea of bringing an echo of the past, so to speak,” Sharoff said. “All the cocktails we had in America (in the early 20th century), like the Tom Collins, currently we use gin in those. All those used genever” before Prohibition.
Four String owners Dan Cochran and Larry Horowitz have not commented on why they
abruptly closed in October. The taproom near Grandview and a brewery on Hague Avenue shuttered with no warning.
Bidinger and Sharoff said they’ve been batting around the idea of opening a distillery or brewery for years. They settled on a distillery two years ago when they saw more and more breweries pop up throughout the region, and they found their opportunity to pull the trigger when they read that Four String closed. After reaching out to the landlord, they secured a lease and started work on Echo.
They’ve already produced a rye whiskey by working with Middle West Spirits in Columbus. That distillery produced the whiskey with input from Bidinger and Sharoff, and the two will distribute the product after a roughly yearlong aging process.
The space for Echo Spirits was cluttered Friday with the equipment that Bidinger brought to set up their distillery, along with items left over from Four String, such as a quartet of bass guitars that gave the taproom its name.
Bidinger and Sharoff have acquired licenses from state and federal governments and are eager to start making liquor.
“We wanted to get a bar up and running, but we want to be seen as manufacturing first,” Bidinger said. Much of the layout for the Four Strings taproom remained after it closed, giving the two the chance to get the bar set up faster than they originally envisioned, he added.
In the meantime, Bidinger and Sharoff have launched a Kickstarter campaign to help raise money for their endeavor. Depending on the size of the donation, contributors can get a T-shirt, a tour of the distillery, or a brick with their name on it to add to a wall the owners plan on erecting inside the building.